A discussion of lesson planning for classroom instruction, a teacher draws on personal experience in teacher education and other life experiences. Examples that accompany the discussion apply to second language teaching. The first chapter offers background information on his early training in planning in the fields of both education and construction, and examines the factors influencing his thinking during that period. The second chapter focuses on a period of graduate training in reflective teaching. Chapters three and four chronicle the creation of a new framework for lesson planning based on the notion of semantic mapping. The resulting approach is to create a physical format for recording the teacher's thinking on lesson elements, including objectives, instructional materials, targeted skills, content, focus, evaluation, and classroom environment. Chapter five describes experimentation with the semantic map lesson planning technique by 20 teachers at a teacher education conference. The concluding chapter discusses the usefulness of the approach for effective, reflective teaching, and for teacher research and professional development. A brief bibliography is also included. (MSE)